The letters that once spelled out "Alzina's" have fallen off the side of the metal building, a former welding shop, that houses the eating establishment. Now, the spot is marked by Alzina Toups' daddy's old pickup, which has an herb garden bursting from the rusty truck bed.

This isn't a restaurant, or a standard catering operation. Alzina Toups prepares real Cajun cuisine only for groups who make their reservations in advance to come to this bit of Bayou Lafourche. And come they do, from all over south Louisiana and beyond.

"Last time we were here, there was a group coming from London," said Mary Ellen Wein of Algiers Point, one of a group of social workers who cherish their annual visit in May.

Some patrons make reservations a year or two in advance. For 24 years, one group has dined with Toups once a month. ("They're now like my family," she says.) Toups cooks three or four days a week, seldom on weekends. She has to refuse business, because she is only one person, and she cooks it all.

"That's how I like it," she said. "You go into a restaurant, different days, there are different cooks, different food, different taste."

The food is impeccably fresh, seafood just pulled out of the bayou and bays, the best steaks, fresh herbs. Everything is chopped and stirred and prepared by hand, the old-fashioned way, no short cuts. It is simple food, created with layers of sophisticated intensity. Toups bakes all her own breads and desserts.

At age 77, she is renowned for her gumbo, rice dressing and other classic dishes in the Cajun canon, but she's also an innovator. She dreams, literally, about new recipes. Lately, she has been creating shrimp recipes, because, she said simply, "I've got to help the trawlers sell their shrimp."

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"I'm a clutterer," Toups said in a low, accented voice that more often speaks the French of the region. "But I'm a clean clutterer." She laughed.

Her recipes are neatly logged on tablets she keeps all over her house, just down the street from her business, to record inspiration. Her kitchen in the former welding shop is filled with every convenience, pans for every kind of bread and fancy dessert, neat and tidy, everything at hand. The microwave and the food processor are seldom used.

She likes the lightweight pan she got at the Vietnamese shop. But she still browns many a roux in her mother's cast iron pot.

Toups has lived on this street all her life. Now, white hair complements her beautiful complexion (which perhaps can be credited to the fact that she has drunk nothing but water for the past four years).

"My family, they were great cooks, all my family," she said. "They were Portuguese, my great-grandparents. They could do good food, very simple ingredients, but their food was out of this world. They didn't use all these ingredients like you have to go to the store for. . . . They were survivors."

Her mother and her brothers made cast nets. Toups remembers baking bread in an outdoor mud oven made of bousillage, a mixture of mud bound together with Spanish moss.

Before his death, she and her husband were self-employed shrimpers. Now, her trawler son gives her seafood and the other son operates a restaurant in Port Fourchon, where she gets her meat, flown in from Chicago. She has two granddaughters and three great-grandchildren. They are all close. Her street is full of relatives.

She is working on a legacy for her family, writing down all their favorites, and recipes she uses at Alzina's, plus cooking tips, and more.

"I regret to this day that I didn't write down what my parents taught me, what my grandparents knew," Toups said. "I forgot some of it, but I am writing down what I know. The boucherie, that couldn't be beat," she said of the traditional communal hog-butchering party. "They were good at it. But they're gone, and that's it. But I have it down," so her descendants can know, too.

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Time spent in Alzina Toups' kitchen is enlightening. She uses whole red pepper flakes instead of ground cayenne. She explains how to pick out the best chickens: Short legs indicate a bigger breast, more white meat.

Her tomato sauce is enhanced by big sprigs of fresh basil and oregano, which she later discards. First she adds blanched shrimp, and later, the larger raw ones. She likes the texture from the blanching, as well as the way the cooked shrimp add flavor. Smashed garlic simmers in the rich sauce for the seafood pasta casserole. The chicken and shrimp fricassee is infused with a jalapeno.

Many of the dishes get a pinch of sugar to balance them out, an old Cajun trick, she said.

"Look how pretty," she said fondly several times as she delighted in the color and the changes as the food cooked. She is a detail person.

It is all pretty.

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Toups rises at 4 every morning after just a few hours' sleep. Later she rides her three-wheeled bike to Mass. She has cooked for the church for 30 years, and once cooked for all the Catholic bishops in the state of Louisiana. Archbishop Alfred Hughes came into the kitchen and blessed her and her granddaughter, Jenny.

"God gave me this gift, to really think about what to put in food," Toups said. "Life is a mystery. We don't know the future, or what's going to happen. We know the past."

She said she doesn't think that God is going to send another hurricane to batter southern Louisiana this season. She closed her business for two weeks after Katrina, and cooked with relief groups. One son's houseboat sank, and her house had damage, which is still unrepaired. She shrugged. She said she detached herself from all material possessions four years ago after God spoke to her, reassuring her before an emergency operation. It changed her life, Toups said.

Recently, a gold medal for small businesses arrived from Washington, D.C., in the mail. Except for her family, she didn't tell anyone until her priest said she wouldn't be showing off if she talked about it.

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Because so many people knew her cooking from church and banquet events, Alzina's was an immediate success when Toups opened it 26 years ago.

Besides the big commercial stove, there is a cooktop set into a counter for the TV show she used to do, and the cooking classes she used to give. "They still want me to do that," she said, "but I'm too busy."

In 1981, she self-published "Cajun's Joy: Cookin' and Eatin,' " which was followed by a book of recipes for healthful dishes after her husband had open heart surgery.

Pharmaceutical companies are some of her biggest customers. They bring doctors down for a special meal, then give presentations. Toups gets a kick out of the doctors. Some want to take over the cooking. Another one asked her to cook his meal of vegetables with no butter or garlic; she told him Julia Child lived into her 90s eating butter, and garlic was good for his heart.

The new editions of her early cookbooks will be available sometime this summer at her son's restaurant, Toupsie's Kajun Eatery. She is undecided about plans to publish the legacy book she is writing for her family.

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Although the beautiful bayou at the end of her street has always been part of her life, Toups has traveled far from it. Several times she visited Nova Scotia, home of her Cajun ancestors. She lived with an Amish family for two weeks. The downside of travel: "Their cooking is bland. Very, very bland. Even the Amish. They don't have spice."

She no longer has the desire to travel, but the world that has found her seeks her out.

"People send me cards and all," she said. "One sent me a card that said, 'God's in the pots and pans in your kitchen,' yes." A fan from Alaska sent her an antique sterling silver spoon with "Alzina" engraved upon it, and a note that said, "This is your time."

And it is, in a way, as she straddles worlds old and new. Toups loves to read anything about the way people lived in the 18th century, as well as her Bible and spy thrillers. She listens to news on the radio in her kitchen as she works.

She would like to cook for Anderson Cooper, she said with a grin. And Brian Williams. And Emeril.

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Four loaves of bread and two walnut tarts were made the day be fore the social workers arrived. Toups cooked for hours before the group of 10 women walked in for lunch, for which they paid $30 apiece. The menu included boneless chicken stuffed with rice dressing; shrimp in tomato sauce; chicken and shrimp fricassee; shrimp and pasta casserole; green beans; and rice, along with iced tea, bread and dessert.

There was also one sensational thing that managed to be both familiar and exotic at the same time: fried soft-shell shrimp.

Toups waited until Juliet Hebert called to say the group was on the way before she started frying. The women brought their own wine and greeted Toups and her sister-in-law, who helps out, asking food questions, excited to be back. Hebert has organized the group's visits for the past nine years.

The first time she called Toups, "I fell in love with this woman over the phone," Hebert declared.

The group held hands and prayed before they helped themselves to the food, set out buffet-style. Everything was a huge hit. Nobody had eaten a soft-shell shrimp before, and they asked how to get them. ("You have to know a trawler," Toups replied.)

The walnut tart, served with ice cream, drew ecstatic moans from the women.

It's the house special, one recipe Alzina Toups doesn't give away.

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Food editor Judy Walker can be reached at jwalker@timespicayune.com or (504) 864-8090.

A TASTE OF TOUPS

Alzina Toups gives cooking tips with the recipes she has written down lately. Most of the recent ones include shrimp.

The tip with this one: "I like to use Roma tomatoes. Their meaty texture makes these tomatoes great for cooking."

Shrimp in tomato sauce

Makes 6 servings

3 tablespoons olive oil or oil

2 tablespoons butter

1 onion, chopped

3 cloves garlic, minced

2 (8-ounce) cans tomato sauce

2 tomatoes, peeled, seeded and diced

1 to 2 cups water

ｽ pound small cooked shrimp

4 sprigs fresh basil

4 sprigs fresh oregano

1 teaspoon brown sugar

ｽ teaspoon dried oregano

ｽ teaspoon dried basil

2 pounds medium uncooked shrimp, peeled

Salt and cayenne pepper to taste

Heat oil and butter. Add onion and garlic; lightly saute. Add tomato sauce, diced tomatoes, ｽ cup water and cooked shrimp. Bring to a boil, turn down to a low simmer, and add sprigs of basil and oregano. Cook, stirring frequently, for 30 minutes, adding water if necessary. After the first 15 minutes, remove herbs.

Cook pasta until tender; drain thoroughly. Butter a 2-quart casserole and add half the pasta. Cover with half the cheese sauce. Repeat one more time, ending with cheese sauce. Cover. Bake at 350 degrees for 20 to 30 minutes, until bubbly. Uncover and top with mozzarella. Bake about 25 to 30 minutes, until cheese is melted and top is very lightly browned.

Serve with a mixed green salad.

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Alzina Toups' note: "This recipe blew my mind. The woman who knows her roux and sauces has a skill to turn out exceptional food, pleasing to the eye."

Chicken and shrimp fricassee

Makes 6-plus servings

ｼ cup plus 2 tablespoons oil

ｾ cup all-purpose flour

1 large onion, chopped

4 boneless chicken thighs, cut into pieces

Dash sugar

3 cups hot water

3 chicken bouillon cubes

1 jalapeno chile, seeded and halved

1 medium potato, peeled and cubed (optional)

2 cups (1 pound) shrimp, peeled

3 tablespoons chopped

parsley

3 tablespoons green onion or chives, sliced

Salt and ground pepper to taste

Make the roux in a heavy pot, mixing oil and flour thoroughly. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until mixture reaches the color of chocolate candy. Stir in onion, chicken pieces and sugar. Smother/fry for 10 to 12 minutes. Add hot water, bouillon cubes and jalapeno. Skim off excess fat, if any.